T STOOD FOR MOM’S name, Taylor.
Awful memories flooded in. Mom and Dad shouting in the kitchen. His slurred words. Her sobs. Loud. So loud I had to bury my head under my pillow.
You’re drunk! Mom would shout. But he wasn’t. His disease—whatever it was—was beginning.
Still, Dad’s entry didn’t make sense. By the time he wrote it, Mom did understand. She knew he was sick.
Home?
That was the last word Dad had said to Mom. She had asked, Where are you going at this hour? and he had answered, Home.
But what did it mean? He was home.
Unless…
Another home. Another life.
A family somewhere else.
Impossible.
Ridiculous.
But my mind was sifting back through the years. Back to all the business trips Dad used to take. He’d be gone for days, on assignment—“helping the pugs,” he said.
Was he lying all that time?
Lying so he could visit them?
I’d heard of cases like this. But Dad?
Told T, he’d written.
So Mom knew about it. Mom knew about his secret life. And she was covering it up.
No. I refused to believe this.
I flipped back a few pages. There had to be an explanation.
The click of the bathroom door caught me off guard.
I slammed the globe shut. Quickly I stuffed the journal into my rear pants pocket, letting my loose T-shirt hang over it.
“Sorry, David.” Mom walked into the room, dabbing her eyes. “When I read passages like that I feel so guilty. Sometimes I forget what a good guy your dad was.”
“Was he?” Easy, David.
Mom gave me a funny look. “Yes, of course, David…”
“I mean, I was just thinking about when you and Dad used to argue…he said some weird stuff, didn’t he?”
“He was very ill,” Mom said with a sigh.
“You must understand it wasn’t his fault.”
“Didn’t he say something about…going home?”
Mom sat down on the bed, her face clouding over. “Yes, he did. I’d hoped you hadn’t heard that…”
“Where, Mom? Where’s his other home?”
“It’s—” Mom cut herself off and choked back a sob. “David, promise me it’s not going to happen to you, too.”
“Promise what’s not going to happen?”
Mom collected herself. Taking a deep breath, she looked me straight in the eye. “Remember how upset I was this morning at the FCSS headquarters? Well, it wasn’t only about what you did. It was also about what you saw.”
“I told you that was just a daydream—”
“That’s where home was, David.” Mom let the words hang in the air. They began dropping into my crazy thoughts like embers on dry brush.
“The Granite Street station,” Mom continued. “That’s where Dad said his home was.”